If you primarily think with your left-brain, then there is a very good chance that you make use of your right hand in order to hold your cell phone close to your right ear, a new study conducted by the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit is claiming.

The new study has found a very strong link between brain dominance and the ear that is used to listen to a cell phone call, with over 70 percent of those who were involved in the study holding their cell phone to their ear on the exact same side as their dominant hand. Those people who have their speech and language centers located on the left side of their brain are much more likely to make use of their right hand for the purposes of writing and other day-to-day activities.

The Henry Ford Hospital study also shows that the great majority of left-brain dominant people also use their cell phone in their right ear even though there is no discernible difference in hearing between either their left or right ears. Likewise, right brain dominant people are much more likely to make use of their left hand in order to hold the cell phone to their left ear.

“Our finding has several implications, especially for mapping the language center of the brain,” says Michael Feidman MD, FACS.

Waterloo Regional Police in Ontario are warning residents to exercise caution after a slew of cell phone robberies that took place over Family Day weekend.  There were no less than three reported incidents over the course of the past weekend, where unknown assailants approached teenage victims and demanded personal items such as cash and electronics like smart-phones.  The incidents have started to become a regular event in recent months throughout the Waterloo Region, and the police are starting to become increasingly concerned, according to spokesperson Olaf Heinzel.  The violence appears to be escalating, with five robberies having involved the use of handguns since the beginning of this year.

The crimes often peak during school holidays such as Family Day weekend, Heinzel says, as culprits sometimes target social events that they discover via social media.  With the March break just around the corner, Heinzel points to the three robberies that took place over the weekend as evidence of the need to exercise caution.

A 14 year old was robbed at knifepoint on Saturday evening around 7:15 pm outside of the Hespeler Memorial Arena, which is located on Ellis Road in Cambridge, with the 16-year-old assailant later being arrested by police.  Another teenager was robbed by three other teenagers just a few hours later while waiting for a bus in Kitchener close to Westmount Road and Fisher-Hallman Road, while a 17-year-old boy and girl were robbed by five male teenagers early on Monday morning outside of a Dartmoor Crescent home in Waterloo.

New legislation is to force retailers in Israel to recycle used batteries and accept old electronic equipment, including old cell phones. On Sunday, the cabinet approved the giving of government to a bill that was proposed by Environmental Protection Ministry to force producers of batteries and electronics to pay for their eventual disposal and waste treatment.

Initiated by Adam Teva V’Din of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, the electronic waste bill has been promoted by the Environmental Protection Ministry as well as MK Nitzan Horowitz. The Environment Ministry says that the government can cut down on both environmental and health hazards by placing the responsibility for the correct disposal of electronic goods with the manufacturers.

Should the bill receive approval from the Knesset, it would force importers and manufacturers of electrical goods to recycle half of the full weight of electronic equipment that they sell every year and force importers and manufacturers of batteries to recycle 25 to 35 percent, depending on the kind of battery sold. Businesses that sell electronic equipment would also be required to accept old goods free of charge when a customer is buying a new version of the same kind of device.

“In modern times there is a huge increase in the replacement of purchasing of electronic products,” says Gilad Erdan, the Environmental Protection Minister. “The bill will regulate for the first time the treatment mechanisms for waste generated by electronics.”

The UP Regional Pollution Control Board, also sometimes simply referred to as UPRPCB, of Noida in India is offering to help residents to be able to dispose of their electronic waste in an environmentally friendly fashion rather than selling it off to local scrap dealers.

Following the directions that have been provided by the state government, the UPRPCB is attempting to put into position a ‘model system’ of electronic waste disposal across the whole of the district, work on which will commence following the assembly elections, according to the regional officer of Noida’s pollution control board, Paras Nath.  In May the pollution control board will start a survey in order to compile a list of electronic waste that is being generated in colleges, government offices, IT firms and schools in Noida and Greater Noida.

“There are about 500 IT companies, 200 private schools and colleges and several government offices that generate tons of e-waste,” an official claims.  “Every household, too, generates a lot of e-waste.  In the absence of an organized disposal system, everybody ends up either dumping e-waste in garbage bins or selling it to scrap dealers.  Once the survey is conducted, we will forward it to the state government.” The report is to be made by September on an annual basis.

After the survey is finished, the pollution board intends to start talks with electronic goods companies in order to set up collections of non-functioning electronics, including old cell phones, from consumers.

Nonophobia is the new phobia hitting the headlines, though you may be forgiven for never having heard of it before. Nonophobia refers to the morbid fear of losing your new or old cell phone, and it is on the rise, at least in the United Kingdom, according to a new survey.

SecurEnvoy, a firm which specializes in digital passwords, and OnePoll have conducted a survey of about 1000 people in the United Kingdom and discovered that two thirds of those responding suffer from the fear of losing their phone, an increase from just over 50 percent from the survey conducted four years ago back in 2008.

The increase is the consequence of more and more people being increasingly dependant on the mobile devices, says the co-founder of SecurEnvoy, Andy Kemshall. “The phone is more than just an item that you carry around such as any other jewelry,” he insists. “This phone is one that connects you to the outside world, almost to the point where if you lose your phone, you’ve effectively lost your wallet, your keys, your lifestyle (and) you can’t talk to anyone.”

Women experience this fear more than men, according to the survey, with the highest levels of nonophobia being registered by those between the ages of 18 and 24. Nonophobia however is not recognized as a real disorder in North America, and psychologist Randi McCabe says it won’t be any time soon, calling it a social phenomenon rather than a genuine phobia.

Borneo’s first electronic waste collection centre, which will cost about RM 500,000, is to be constructed in Deshon Road in Sibu in order to try and solve the problem of the indiscriminate dumping of such waste, which includes old cell phones.  The proposed two storey structure will sit on land about half an acre size, according to Datuk Tiong Thai King, the chairman of the Sibu Municipal Council (SMC), who says that the council will be fully supporting the initiative which has been led by the Sibu branch of the Computer Sales and Association Sarawak (CSSA).

“The proposed centre will be built on an open space in Deshon Road,” Tiong informed The Borneo Post following the CSSA Sibu’s branch’s annual dinner, which was held on Sunday.  Tiong could not state for definite when the project would commence, just that the association had approached SMC in regards to the matter but was still waiting for their plan to be submitted.  “It is hoped that with the facility, Sibu people will find it easy to recycle their unwanted or obsolete computer accessories and other e-waste.”

“We are going to have a final round of discussion with all our members and work out how best the proposed centre can benefit the people of Sibu,” says Wong Ing Ang, the branch chairman of CSSA Sibu, adding that they were intending to add an incubation centre and information centre as well as its primary function as an electronic waste collection centre.

People who spend an inordinate amount of their time on their new or old cell phones are likely to be more egocentric than those who do not, according to a preliminary study from the University of Maryland.

Researchers Rosellina Ferraro, Ajay Abraham and Anastasiya Pocheptsova wanted to look at what effects cell phone use has on pro-social behavior, i.e. behavior which is beneficial, helpful or just positive to other people, and so studied a bunch of 20-something college students, asking them to spend a bit of quality time with their beloved mobile phones.

The Baltimore Sun says that the researchers discovered that even just a short time using cell phones made those tested less likely to volunteer for a community service activity if they were so asked, in comparison to their counterparts in a control group. They were also even less prepared to work on word problems, even when aware that successful completion resulted in a cash donation to charity. Oddly enough, even just asking the test subjects to draw a picture of their cell phone and think about how they use them was enough to generate the same anti-social behavior.

“The cell phone directly evokes feelings of connectivity to others, thereby fulfilling the basic need to belong,” the authors reckon. In other words, the researchers are suggesting that if people use their cell phone for long enough, this meets the brain’s need to connect with others, but at the expense of actual social participation.

The government of India is trying to tackle the country’s growing mountain of electronic waste with a recycling law that intends to force manufacturers of high tech gadgets to clean up the toxic garbage, which is discarded by their customers in items such as old cell phones.

The manufacturers however do not feel that they should be carrying the responsibility all on their own. The new electronic waste legislation from the country’s ministry of environment and forests will come into force in three months time in May, and will lay out procedures for consumers, manufacturers and waste collectors.

Computer hardware manufacturers such as the likes of Hewlett-Packard are arguing that that everyone should be sharing the burden of managing electronic waste however, not just companies such as themselves. “It is the responsibility of consumers to discard their electronic waste responsibly, the responsibility of government to provide adequate collection and drop off facilities for end of life products and the responsibility of manufacturers to manage the treatment and recycling of their products,” says HP India environmental manager Upasana Choudhry. “Within this model of shared responsibility, manufacturers must provide for the recycling of their products, and have an option to do this collectively or individually.”

India generates as much as 350,000 tons of electronic waste per annum and imports another 50,000 tons, according to a Centre for Science and Environment India report. At the moment, only around 19,000 tons is being recycled.

Anyone trying to find an answer to a difficult problem at school, university or work might want to make sure everyone has turned off their new or old cell phone ringtone. Researchers are claiming that remembering things and coming up with solutions is easier to accomplish if your cell phone has been set to silent as ringtones, particularly those that use catchy songs, drain the power of your brain.

Scientists from Washington University in St Louis in the United States say that students who were exposed to ringing cell phones scored as much as up to 25 percent less on tests that those who were not. If the song used was one that the students knew and liked, then the results were even worse.

“Many of us consider a mobile phone ringing in a public place to be an annoying distraction, but this study confirms that these nuisance noises also have real life impacts,” says Jill Shelton, who was the lead author of the study. “These seemingly innocuous events are not only a distraction, but they have a real influence on learning.”

On the plus side however, evidence also suggests that people can simply become immune to some distractions, with students who featured in repeated trials of the experiment failing to be distracted by the same event. “There’s definitely some evidence to suggest that people can become habituated to a distracting noise,” Shelton concedes, citing constantly ringing phones in the office environment as an example which people eventually become accustomed to.

Electronic waste includes the likes of old cell phones, discarded computers, refrigerators, office electronic equipment, television sets and other entertainment electrical equipment, and it results in diverse effects on both the environment and on human beings.  The waste needs to be contained, according to Norbert Duhuze, the Rwanda Environment Management Authority’s (REMA) Director of Environmental Regulation and Pollution.

“Most of these electronics contain hazardous components that can be very dangerous and pollute underground water if they are not disposed of properly,” Duhuze told the New York Times.  “We may not be in a position to immediately have a factory that can manage e-waste, but we will have some infrastructure in place to deal with the issue.” Duhuze says that no specific place has been earmarked for that purpose at present, although there is a store in the Ministry of Infrastructure where outdated electronic equipment from government bodies is stored.

Dr Ignace Gatare, the Minister in the President’s Office who is Charge of ICT, has confirmed to the New York Times that a team of experts has been set up by his office to produce a clear draft policy on the subject of the management of electronic waste.

In a different interview with the same newspaper, Rwanda Utility Regulation Authority’s (RURA) head of the ICT applications office which is in charge of electronic waste, Anita Batamuliza, says that a team of experts from REMA, RURA, the Ministry of ICT, RDB-IT and the Rwanda Bureau of Standards has been set up to draft the electronic waste management policy.